


a toast to the ashes ahead

by hamiltrashed



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Death, Love, M/M, Sex, all i do is write angsty rickyl stuff now oops, everything is so emotional goddamn it why can't i stop, love in the time of apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:46:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4352933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamiltrashed/pseuds/hamiltrashed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is what life looks like: the taste of the way someone else says your name like a prayer against your lips</p>
            </blockquote>





	a toast to the ashes ahead

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SkariCovers (skarlatha)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skarlatha/gifts), [no_path_untaken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/no_path_untaken/gifts).



> "You know what, Katie? You don't just take a [beloved children's book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giving_Tree) about selflessness and sacrifice and use it to help you write Rickyl fic. You should be ashamed."  
> \- Things I did not say to myself before, during, or after writing this

this is what death looks like: outstretched palms, no air left in the lungs, brain and blood and bone and tissue all melting back into the georgia clay. the earth gives and takes back in spades, no longer trading a life for a life, but a life for a something in between: half human, half monster, and only hunger in the mind.

rick is hungry, too. in much the same way, it is all he can think about. hunger is desire, is the scent of sweat and motorcycle grease in his nostrils, like smelling salts, reviving him every time he starts to slip, starts to wonder if death would be kinder. it reaches for him, after all, with those open hands that speak of old friendship. but rick reaches for daryl instead, satiates himself on anything daryl will surrender to him.

daryl is rick’s giving tree, and rick is so goddamn greedy, asking for branch after branch and finally, a place to rest. it’s not quite right, rick knows, to want so much, to _need_ so much, but he is past the point of trying to be conscientious. he hungers and is fed, is found wanting and forgiven, and daryl’s grace is salvation of the highest kind. he fears that anything he has to offer in return is nothing in comparison. daryl is _home_ and rick is a fleabag motel off the highway where you stop only when you can drive no more, a last resort. daryl, to his credit, will always say otherwise. but rick, for all his faith, will never believe it.

even so, death looks bitter now in the scheme of things, not better. rick will follow daryl to hell at the end, no questions asked, but first, he’s gonna live. _they’re_ gonna live.

because this is what life looks like: the taste of the way someone else says your name like a prayer against your lips, hearts beating like war drums, proverbial glasses raised in a toast to what’s ahead, even the ashes. a person can make it through the ashes, if a person can cry out and receive an answer, if a person can reach out and be given a lifeline to cling to. and daryl is rick’s lifeline. he always has been.

life looks the way daryl does when he’s beneath rick in the dark of a dirty prison cell, eyes shut tight, mouth open in a silent cry. life looks like waking up tangled together, and nobody saying a damn thing - not because it would be foolish to risk the ire of someone who carries a crossbow like it’s attached to him - but because they all know and in a way, they’ve always known. and even on the days when life looks a lot like death, when there is nothing left in either of them to give, daryl still scrapes the bottom of the barrel and gives the last of it to rick. it is something to behold: a gift of water even when the well is empty. 

rick has long since stopped pinching himself to wake himself up from what he initially thought, hoped, was a nightmare. he’s found that home doesn’t need to be four walls, because he still has a place to rest. whenever this is all over, rick will lie down somewhere and know peace. 

and as fate would have it, peace looks a lot like sleepy blue eyes and a hand to hold on the way down below.

**Author's Note:**

> Befriend me for more lowercase emotional prison-focused Rickyl fanfiction with lowkey religious imagery. I'm here until I die.
> 
> I always feel the need to gift these lil ficlets to skarlatha and/or my wifey, no_path_untaken. They're probably the only reason I write them anyway!


End file.
